Don,
Great post. I apologize for picking apart this post, but I don't have time to respond to every point right now.

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Of course in Judaism and Christianity one is called to be a good and kind soul not for a reward but because that is what God wants of us - reward or not.

That is a good point, but then shouldn't we still strive to be as good as humanly possible because that is what God wants of us?

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We are to have a balance in life in terms of our spiritual and physical needs. If we try to give up more and sacrifice more than we are actually capable of after some time we will become resentful and desist and maybe even lose faith in God.

I think it's possible to make self sacrifices and keep your faith in God. After all, it is your faith in God that is causing you to make those self sacrifices.

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The fact is the afterlife remains a life long mystery to us and we cannot have any experience of it in the 'here and now' - to confirm what it is or isn't.

If you believe in the literal truth of the bible, then you must at least believe that heaven is a great place where people are rewarded and hell is a terrible place where people are punished.

Q: shouldn't we still strive to be as good as humanly possible because that is what God wants of us?

R: Yes but we must not let false piety and zealousness push us to a devotional standard that isn't literally practicable or reasonable. We cannot sabotage our faith and our lives in this way.

Q: I think it's possible to make self sacrifices and keep your faith in God. After all, it is your faith in God that is causing you to make those self sacrifices.

R: Isn't that what we've been saying? It's clear that people can and do make self sacrifice and their faith grows as a result.

Yet that isn't really the point you were implying in your other posting. You were reasoning that since Christian teachings present an ideal of a pay off in heaven it would necessitate those following to give wholly of themselves to charity.

Q: If you believe in the literal truth of the bible, then you must at least believe that heaven is a great place where people are rewarded and hell is a terrible place where people are punished

If you really, truly believe that good people are rewarded in heaven and that bad people are punished in hell, wouldn't you do absolutely everything in your power to be a good person?

Nobody believes this anymore. If your good you go to heaven. If your bad you go to hell. This may be official church policy but I have been to hundreds of church services in many different churches and never heard a hell(turn or burn) message.

Hell does not exist in the Bible. It is all a mistranslation. So many pastors and priests, reverends and scholars are being taught this at seminary or discovering it for themselves that the concept is totally discredited.

If you really, truly believe that good people are rewarded in heaven and that bad people are punished in hell, wouldn't you do absolutely everything in your power to be a good person?

Nobody believes this anymore. If your good you go to heaven. If your bad you go to hell. This may be official church policy but I have been to hundreds of church services in many different churches and never heard a hell(turn or burn) message.

Hell does not exist in the Bible. It is all a mistranslation. So many pastors and priests, reverends and scholars are being taught this at seminary or discovering it for themselves that the concept is totally discredited.

All the judgement and fire and brimstone talk in the Bible was in regards to the coming judgement of the Jewish nation. Jesus predicted this and said that "this generation would be the one to see these things. His prediction came true in 70A.D. The Romans defeated the Jews and killed 400,000 of them and threw their bodies in Gehenna which was the garbage dump just outside Jerusalem where fires burn continually(unending) in order to consume the garbage. Revelation was written in 68 A.D.(most scholars contend) and if you read the description of Hell(Gehenna) in Revelation with the descriptions in other accounts(check Wikipedia's account) it fits to a tee.

1. It is important because Jesus taught about it more than all other Biblical authors put together. Jesus speaks of "eternal fire and punishment" as the final abode of the angels and human beings who have rejected God (Matthew 25:41,46) He says that those who give into sin will be in danger of the "fire of hell" (Matthew 5:22; 18:8-9.) The word Jesus uses for 'hell' is Gehenna, a valley in which piles of garbage were daily burned as well as the corpses of those without families who could bury them. In Mark 9:43 Jesus speaks of a person going to "hell [gehenna], where 'their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.' " Jesus is referring to the maggots that live in the corpses on the garbage heap. When all the flesh is consumed, the maggots die. Jesus is saying, however, that the spiritual decomposition of hell never ends, and that is why 'their worm does not die.'

Jesus here was prophecying about the destruction of the Jewish nation which occurred in 70A.D. Gehenna was the Jewish garbage dump which had had fires burning there for 1000 years(unquenchable fire).

If I were to saw I will love the Leafs forever does that mean I will love them forever or
am I using a figure of speach. Jesus is using a figure of speech here when he says "their worm does not die". If this was said by a lay person or even one of the disciples no one would think the worm lived forever. Because Jesus did and he is God and eternal then people take the things he said and give them greater importance then were meant.

If Jesus had said "it's not over till the fat lady sings" we would be analyzing that sentence and giving it huge importance(when it is only a figure of speech).

My understanding is that hell is separation from almighty God who has the mercy to allow you and I to breathe. I think being eternally separated from God is worse than any physical torment that one can go through. I don't think we will be able to truly comprehend all of this with our mere human intellects until the day comes.

The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity its painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life

My understanding is that hell is separation from almighty God who has the mercy to allow you and I to breathe. I think being eternally separated from God is worse than any physical torment that one can go through. I don't think we will be able to truly comprehend all of this with our mere human intellects until the day comes.

Cop out. It is not too much for your intellect. It may be your understanding that hell is seperation from God, but why start your own religion(oh, I think I will believe this). Why not study the scriptures and find what they say about hell.

Find where hell is mentioned in the bible and then find the original Greek or Hebrew word for the word translated hell. Simple.

You are correct in that we could all probably do more to help, however nobody is perfect. We are all sinners and will be forgiven if we ask for it.

Does this mean we should just give up helping the poor because we'll be forgiven? No, the value is in the journey, not necessarily the destination. Being a Christian doesn't mean that you should be perfect. Only Christ was perfect and although we can never become like him we should try to follow his teaching and try to become better people.

A Christian isn't Christ. We can't be without sin as Jesus was, however we can try to avoid it and ask forgiveness when we recognize sin.

As others have said I believe that everybody will someday be shown the truth and will be offered forgiveness. However, I believe that some will still refuse to have faith and in that case they may go to Hell.

Also some believe that Heaven and Hell are empty right now because the dead right are "sleeping" and will reawaken to be judged at judgement day.

I had surgery once and went under anethezia(sic) and I remember counting backward from 100..99..98 out and then instantly waking up and it was 6 hours later and the surgery was done. Weirdest feeling I ever had.

Maybe that's what it will be like when we die. We go to sleep and then instantly wake up again 100 or a thousand years later.

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As others have said I believe that everybody will someday be shown the truth and will be offered forgiveness.

There are hundreds of verses that say all people will be saved. I will look up some passages and get a list for you.

There is 1 main translation problem and a time line problem.

Translation Problem
Etenity (meaning forever) does not exist in the Bible. The people of this time thought in terms of ages not forever. The main words used in the new testament is Aion which means an age and Aionion which means unto the age of the ages. When Jesus talks of the unpardonable sin he says that a person guilty of this sin will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. This is the only place in the new testament where the term Aionian is render true to the original intent of the writers. There are many instances in the catacombs of Rome where inscriptions on the graves of Chistians are inscribed with the line "here lies(so and so) for this age and the age to come. If this inscription were in the Bible it would be interpreted as "here lies so and so forever". Christians do not believe they are in the grave forever. They believe in the resurrection.

Hell is described as lasting forever because of a mistranslation of the Bible. If there is a hell it will only last for this age and the age to come. It will not last forever. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end. The beginning and the end of what. Time. He created time and in the end when time be abolished.

The verses that say all people will be saved can be reconciled with an existing hell because when time is abolished then all people will be freed from hell and given a chance to accept Jesus as Savior. "Every knee shall bow every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord".

Time line Problem

The Christian church has taken alot of the warnings Jesus and the apostles had for the Jewish nation upon themselves. The text that describe people being thrown into hell are actually prophecies Jesus gave about the destruction of the Jewish nation. These amazing propecies came true in 70 AD. Jerusalem was destroyed and 400,000 Jews where killed and their bodies thrown into Gehenna(the garbage dump on the edge of town where unending fires burned in order to consume the garbage of the city).

Many scholars now believe that the entire scriptures of the new Testament where written before 70 AD. There is no mention of the destruction of the Temple in the Bible and if this had occurred it certainly would have been mentioned.

Our belief in hell is due to bad translations of the bible, especially Jerome's Latin Vulgate and the King James bible. The word hell is mentioned 53 times in the King James Bible. In the New International Version it is mentioned 11 times.

Hopefully in time it will not be mentioned at all.

You may think I am on shaky ground but with Vatican 2 the Catholic church now believes that all people go to heaven. John Paul 2 has also talked about the reconciliation of all.

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